Linda Barlow (72 page)

"Control yourself, girl. Unless you would have me order up one of your own potions to calm your nerves?"

Oh God. Alexandra sobbed out her fear and grief, hating herself for her weakness, yet helpless to repress her feelings anymore. She had tried every ploy imaginable to save her husband—from rallying his friends to testify at his trial to offering discreet bribes to people in high places. The queen was her last remaining hope; yet here too she had failed.

Mary reached down and stroked her hair lightly. "I will pray for you," she repeated. "There is nothing more I can do."

Setting her jaw, Alexandra managed to say, "Since you will not grant me that boon, I ask another. I have not been allowed to see Roger since he was condemned. I wish to visit him in prison before he dies."

"You may do so. I shall give the order."

"I want a writ, signed and sealed by you." She nodded at the table, the quills and ink and papers. "Please write it out for me now."

"You command
me,
mistress?" the queen said in a dangerous tone.

"No," said her former lady-in-waiting. "As you see, I am begging you on my knees."

Mary snatched up a quill and wrote. "Take it and be gone."

* * *

They were keeping him in a cell in the Tower of London, where many prisoners more illustrious than he had been sequestered prior to their deaths. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two unfortunate wives of Mary's father, King Henry VIII, had died here on Tower Green. The honorable statesman and scholar Sir Thomas More, another of Henry's victims, had also met his doom within these walls. As had Lady Jane Grey, who had so unwisely agreed to be a puppet queen for nine days at the beginning of Mary’s reign. Elizabeth, current heiress to the throne, had been imprisoned here too, after Wyatt's unsuccessful rebellion. Alexandra tried to take heart from the fact that Elizabeth had later gone free.

There were various kinds of accommodations in the Tower; depending upon his or her rank, the prisoner might be housed in anything from a relatively pleasant apartment to a hellhole. Roger, who had both lineage and wealth, had been accorded one of the better chambers. On an upper level, it was large and relatively clean, although there was a musty smell, arising, no doubt, from the proximity of the River Thames, which flowed alongside the ancient fortress.

The queen's writ had conveyed Alexandra through the various gatehouses, past the administrators and guards. Everybody seemed to know who she was. Even her pregnancy was no secret here. "You want to watch yourself with 'im," she was told by Harry, the cheery potbellied warder who led her along a dark passageway toward Roger's cell. "A man who's about to die often wants some last crumbs of earthly pleasure, and you've got a babe to protect inside you. You want me to stay nearby and interrupt the poor sod if 'e tries anything with you?"

"Of course not," she told the guard with equal frankness. "He is my husband. Why do you suppose I'm here?"

Harry guffawed loudly. "Out of the mercy of your 'eart, 'ey, mistress? May the good Lord give me such a woman at the time of me own death!" he said as he unlocked the door to Roger's prison.

He was stretched out on his pallet, squinting over a book in the dim light from a guttering candle. "Now what? Not another blasted priest, I hope. Harry, I've told you..." His voice trailed off as he saw her. He dropped the book and rose jerkily to his feet. "Alix?"

She ran into his arms.

"Alix, good God, what are you doing here? How did you get in? They told me I was allowed no visitors, and God knows I've had none, despite my various attempts at bribery. Oh, sweetling, let me look at you." He pushed her back and ran his hands over her swelling belly. "The babe's growing. You're beautiful, lass, more beautiful than ever." He hugged her, kissed her, his hands and lips trembling. "Body of Christ, I thought I'd never see you again!"

He was thinner. The angular cheekbones stood out now, giving a lean and hungry cast to his face. There were shadows around his beautiful dark eyes. She ran her hand over his chest and stomach. "You're getting thin and I'm getting fat."

"A shadow of my former self, 'ey?"

She held him closer, her embrace convulsive. "Have they tortured you?" she asked, thinking of all the nightmares she'd had since the day of his arrest at Whitcombe Castle in September.

"Not lately." He brushed back a lock of burnished hair that had pulled loose from her intricate braiding. "In the beginning they did." He shuddered slightly. "But since the trial they've been perfectly decent and civilized. Keeping my strength up, I imagine, for the final ordeal."

A fine shiver stole over Alexandra's skin. Convicted of treason, Roger had been condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered. It was a savage, gruesome death. "You've sufficiently bribed the executioner, I trust?" 'Twas common practice, she knew. For a certain sum of money, the hangman would make certain that death came speedily, at the end of the rope. Otherwise, a traitor's death was lingering and brutal.

When Roger did not answer, Alexandra leaned back in his arms to see his face. His mouth was set in a grim line. "Let us talk of pleasanter things, my love."

"You
haven't
bribed the executioner?"

"I tried." His voice was grim. "But it seems he's had special orders concerning me. I am to be kept alive until the bitter end, like a worm writhing on the end of a pin. They want to make an example of me."

"Oh God!"

"Ssh, beloved." He gathered her close, pulling her down with him upon the bed. "Hush, my darling, I'm not afraid. Well... that's not precisely true; I am afraid, of course, but no doubt I shall rise to the occasion. I usually do, and how long can it last, at the worst? There will be an end. And the fire would have been just as bad."

Alexandra began to tremble and couldn't stop.

"Promise me something. Promise me you won't be there. I could not bear to have you watch."

"I thought to be close, where you could see me. To give you something to hold on to. To send to you my love at the moment when you need it most."

"Send it from afar, then, beloved. Have you ever witnessed a traitor's execution?"

She shook her head.

"It is a spectacle fit only for savages. You are pregnant, Alix. Stay away, lest you lose the child." He touched her belly again; the child rolled beneath his hands, making him smile. "Listen, beloved. This babe is all that will remain of me. He or she is my final gift to you. I want you to leave this prison and return to Whitcombe Castle to await the birth."

"But Roger, you may need me."

"No, love." His voice was intense. "What I need is to be assured of your safety. I would not have you suffer more; I would not have you see what they are going to do with my body. Rather I would have you remember me as I am today, whole and alive and full of the joy that comes with loving you." He touched her breasts, her thighs. "Remember me as your hotly passionate lover." He touched her distended belly. "And as a proud father and husband." He bent his head and tenderly kissed her lips. "For I am your husband, though we have never lived together in our married state. Before God, you and I are joined. And you will be with me, at the end, in spirit. As I will be with you, ever after." He paused. "Promise me."

Tears were pouring down her cheeks. She pressed her face against his throat, feeling his warm living flesh, hearing the throb of his pulse beneath her ear. She could not believe that his heart would soon be silenced, his beautiful body mutilated and destroyed. "Oh, Roger, I love you so. How can this be happening to us? How can God let it happen? You're all I've ever dreamed of, all I've ever wanted. I've tried so hard to be brave, and I've done so well. But you were alive and there was always hope. When you are gone, there will be nothing. How can I live without you? From where will I draw my strength?"

"You will find the strength." His voice was calm, authoritative. "You will remember all the joy between us—all of it, from the years when we were children, to the recent months when we have loved each other as man and woman. You will hold those moments close; they will expand to fill your life. And someday, when the time for grief has passed, they will recede to linger in the background as you discover other sources of happiness and joy. For there will be others, my sweetling; you are still young. You will have our child to make you laugh, and perhaps, in time, another man."

"No!"

"Hush—I do not begrudge you that. You must take what life offers you. I shall not mind. It is only bodies that are sexually jealous, not souls. Bodies need other bodies; that is natural. But souls fly free, and one day yours will join me; I have no doubt of that."

"Yes, that is true," she said fervently. "Our souls are one and have been so since childhood."

His hands moved more insistently over her bodice. He kissed her deeply and stirred against her. "In the meantime, since I'm still in my body..." His voice trailed off with a slight chuckle as his fingers sought the fastenings of her gown. "D'you mind? Once more before I leave all fleshly cravings behind me forever?"

She shook her head, smiling bravely, and helped him untangle the intricate bindings of her gown. He jerked the fabric down to her waist and parted the ribbons of her delicate chemise. As she felt his cool, deft hands moving on her breasts, she melted instantly, glowing for him as she always did with the fires of life. He reached up and loosened her hair, raking his fingers through it until it fell in fiery waves upon her naked shoulders. He took a lock and wrapped it around his fingers, then teased the rosy peak of her breast with the strands of hair until she moaned and arched toward him.

"My love." He bent his head and kissed her sweetly. "Look at you, burning, shining. You are life at its best, its bravest, its most noble. You are my candle in the dark. We will be together always, never doubt that. As long as there is fire in the heavens, my soul and yours will burn with love. Do you believe me?"

"Yes," she whispered. And she did.

Chapter 43

"I wish to speak with the head executioner," Alexandra said to the guard, Harry, as he led her down the corridor away from Roger's cell.

"Do ye now?" Harry looked at her sympathetically. "I warrant I know why. 'E's bein' particularly stubborn in this case."

"Why? My husband has offered him gold, lots of it. What does he want?"

"'E wants to keep 'is job, I reckon. I've 'eard 'e's been pressured from somewhere on 'igh to make your man's execution an event to remember."

"By someone on high? Who? Not the queen, I know; she is not so cruel."

"I know not, unless it be that Frenchman."

"What Frenchman? Describe him."

"A true peacock the wight is, yellow 'air, slender as smoke, and as gaudily clad as one of them fancy-boys down at Madam Nan's riverside establishment."

"Geoffrey de Montreau."

"I don't know 'is name. All I know is, 'twas after one of 'is chats with Master Simon—that's the 'eadsman, dearie—that we 'eard that 'e wasn't gonna take a bribe from your man to keep 'im from dying slow."

"The Frenchman had already paid his price."

"Looks like it."

Alexandra cursed under her breath. Geoffrey again, always Geoffrey. He'd been there throughout the trial, gloating. He had laughed with triumph over the verdict, and all but danced in glee when sentence had been pronounced. Now he was making certain that Roger would die horribly, in unspeakable pain. Was there no end to the man's malice?

"What sort of bribes does this Master Simon usually take? Money, of course; we can assume the Frenchman's given him that. What else? What if the prisoner has no money?" She deliberately hardened herself. "What if the prisoner is a woman? What bribe does she offer?"

Harry touched a solicitous hand to her arm. "Look, young mistress, you're not thinkin' what I think you're thinkin', I 'ope? Simon's an ugly brute. Oh, 'e's a master with the ax on the gibbet, that's certain, and 'e can put out an eye or mangle a foot in the Boot with the best of 'em, but 'e's no gentleman with the wenches, I assure ye. You're a fine lady, too good for the likes of 'im."

"Does he like women," she persisted, "or might there have been another reason for his favoring of the elegant Frenchman's suit?"

"'E likes women, all right. 'E's got a wife, a wig-maker, but she's a shrewish bitch. Simon takes what 'e can get round about these parts, you need not doubt that."